The Paris Wife

THIRTY-EIGHT

Let me just go and see about her,” Jinny said, and followed Pauline to the edge of the garden, where a small green berm stood surrounded by willow trees. I couldn’t hear anything they said, but saw Pauline burying her head in her hands and shaking it back and forth. That’s when it struck me that Pauline was being very brave about me, about inviting me to be near her for days on end when she was very much in love with my husband. As soon as the thought formed in my mind I knew I wasn’t being a jealous wife. It was true and couldn’t be managed or changed. She had walked through the garden and felt it speaking to her of all she couldn’t have of happiness. Ernest and I were the garden, and we could only destroy her, and it was already happening.

On the berm, Jinny bent near her and whispered something tender, and Pauline seemed calmer. But when Jinny tried to lead her back to where I stood, she resisted. Finally, Jinny came back alone.

“I don’t know what to say. She’s a Pandora’s box of moodiness, always has been, really. Ever since we were girls.”

“Jinny, please be straight with me. Is Ernest involved in this? Has Pauline fallen in love with him?”

Jinny looked at me with surprise. Her eyes were very brown and very clear under the sharp fringe of her dark bangs. “I think they care for each other.”

That’s when I saw the part I hadn’t seen before and I felt very strange and stupid for missing it. “Oh,” I said, and then could think of nothing more to say.

The rest of the trip was a blur for me. There was another interminable day, and I passed it painfully. I couldn’t rally and pretend things were fine. I could barely speak to Pauline and Jinny civilly. It was too striking that once Pauline’s secret was out, both of the women were easier and seemed to enjoy themselves. I began to think that they had engineered the trip specifically to let me know, in one way or another, about the affair.

Driving back the way we’d come, we saw many of the same châteaux in the distance, struck by sunlight or floating in mists as if they were made of helium. But I couldn’t feel the beauty of any of it now. My head was floating also, well above my body as I wondered how far things had gotten between Ernest and Pauline and how far things might yet go for all of us. Had they become lovers in Paris, as Ernest was coming and going from New York, or even before, at Schruns? It made me sick to think of them together there. That was our garden. Our best and favorite place. But maybe nothing was safe anymore.

Back in Paris, Jinny and Pauline drove me to the sawmill and dropped me there. They didn’t ask to come up and I didn’t offer. If Pauline wanted to look up at the windows on the second floor to see if Ernest was looking down at her, she resisted. She sat and stared straight ahead in a very pale gray hat, and we said our good-byes like near strangers.

Upstairs, Ernest was reading in bed, and the baby was out with Marie Cocotte. He put his book down when I came in and watched with growing recognition as I stood there shaking, unable to take off my hat and coat.

“You’re in love with Pauline.” I made myself meet his eyes as I said it.

His shoulders stiffened and then fell. He clenched his hands and then unclenched them, but stayed silent.

“Well?”

“Well what? I can’t answer you. I won’t.”

“Why not if it’s true?” My breath was shallow, and it was getting harder and harder to look at him, to stare him down and pretend that I was in control of anything.

“Who gives a damn what’s true? There are things you shouldn’t say.”

“What about the things you shouldn’t do?” My voice was arch and very high. “What about the promises you’ve made?”

“Guilt won’t do it, you know. If you think you can make me feel worse than I’ve made myself feel, you’ll have to try much harder.”

“Goddamn you.”

“Yes, well. That much is guaranteed, I’d wager.” And then, as I watched him, my face fallen, my mouth open like an idiot’s, he grabbed his coat and hat and went off to walk the streets in the rain.

I was stunned. All the long drive back to Paris I’d thought of what to say that would draw Ernest out and make him tell me plainly what was going on. If there was something terrible to know, I wanted it straight out and clean with no waffling or evasion. But what on earth was I supposed to do with this? His silence was as much as an admission that he was in love with her, but somehow he’d turned it all back on me so that the affair wasn’t the worst thing, but that I’d had the very bad taste to mention it.

When Marie Cocotte came in with Bumby, I was crying so hard they were both alarmed. Marie stayed and helped me feed Bumby and put him to bed, as I was clearly useless. As she left, she said, “Please, madame, is there something I can do?”

I shook my head.

“Try not to be so sad, yes?”

“I’ll try.”

Outside, the gray rain fell and fell. Where had spring gone? When I’d left for the Loire Valley, the leaves had been out on the trees, and the flowers were beginning to bloom, but now everything was drenched and drowned. It had been a false spring, a lie like all the other lies, and I found myself wondering if it would ever really come.

It was well past midnight when Ernest came home drunk. I was still awake and had moved from sad to angry many times over.

“I don’t want you here,” I said when he sat down on the bed to remove his shoes. “Go home to your lover if that’s what you want.”

“She’s headed to Bologna,” he said. “And how would you know what I want?”

I sat up quickly and slapped him as hard as I could, and then did it again.

He barely flinched. “Play the victim if you want, but no one’s a victim here. You should have kept your goddamned mouth shut. Now it’s all shot to hell.”

“Are you telling me you would have been perfectly happy to just go on this way, in love with her, saying nothing about it?”

“Something like that,” he said.

“I can’t believe you,” I said, and began to cry. “I can’t believe any of this.”

Just then, the baby woke in the next room and whimpered.

“Perfect,” he said, staring at the wall. “Now I guess he’ll start wailing, too.” He left the room and went into the kitchen, and a few minutes later when I came out in my robe to check on Bumby, he had already poured himself a whiskey and was reaching for the siphon.

Ernest never came to bed that night, and in the morning, when I got up to make breakfast, he had already left the apartment. Late in the afternoon he came home, and when he took off his coat and emptied his notebook and pencils from his pocket, I was surprised to see them, on this of all days.

“You worked today?”

“Like the devil,” he said. “I got a draft of a new story. It came out whole as a fish.”

I could only shake my head as I put some cold meat, cheese, and bread on a plate. Bumby came over as Ernest ate and sat on his knee and shared nibbles of his bread. I watched them for a time and then said, “What happens now?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t written this. I haven’t any idea what comes next.”

“Will you still go to Spain?”

“Why not? The plans are all made. I’m leaving on the twelfth. Not a day later if I don’t want to miss the corrida in Madrid. I’ll be back for your concert, of course. That won’t be a problem.”

“I can’t do it now,” I said. I’d all but forgotten about the performance. How could I possibly give it without dissolving into tears in front of everyone we knew?

“Why the hell not? The theater’s booked. You can’t back out.”

“I can and I will.”

“Everyone will talk, you know.”

“They’re probably doing that now. I wouldn’t be surprised if the cafés aren’t burning with this gossip.”

“To hell with them. Nothing hurts if you don’t let it.”

“You don’t really believe that?”

“I have to,” he said.

“Have you told Pauline?”

“That you know? Not yet.”

“Well, let’s ask her how we go on from here. I’m sure she has some brilliant plan.”

“Careful there.”

“Why? Are you afraid I’m becoming a bitch? If I am, we know who’s to blame.”

He got up and came back with a bottle of brandy and two glasses. “Drink this,” he said, filling the tumbler and passing it across the table. “You could use it.”

“Yes, let’s get stinking drunk.”

“All right. We’ve always been good at that.”